David R. Hawkins, MD, PhD (DH): In the Western world, karma, as such, as a topic, is neither understood nor accepted. It’s prevalent, of course, in the Far East cultures, certainly those that are Buddhist and Hindu, etc. It is the presumption in the Eastern cultures. Western culture actually believes in karma, but they don’t identify it by that terminology. The inheritance of mankind is already stated, that it is karmically fated by virtue of the Garden of Eden, man’s fall from grace. The Garden of Eden radiates down through mankind, karmically. As an individual, you were never in the Garden of Eden, and didn’t make a mistake, and didn’t listen to the serpent ... but you are still paying the price. Western man also believes in karma, but not as a specific term. More specifically in the East, it is seen as a sequence of lifetimes. The evolution of the soul goes through many embodiments before it reaches, hopefully, perfection.

UH: It seems that one of the most striking discoveries or statements that calibrates as true is the discovery that we are all born into karmically optimal circumstances for our optimal spiritual growth.

DH: Yes, that’s a discovery of consciousness research. I don’t know if it’s also a Buddhist concept or not, but I suspect it probably is, as well. Whatever the circumstances you find yourself in, they are absolutely perfect for what you need to know and how you need to grow.

UH: And it seems as if just accepting that as provisionally true can just take a whole load off ya, you know …

DH: Yes … you don’t have to feel guilty that you’re born dumb and ugly!

UH: I am perfectly limited in my intellectual incapacities … With regard to karma, another confirmable discovery is that each person is born with a specific level of consciousness.

DH: Yes, that’s true. You can diagnosis the level of consciousness the instant an infant is born. Without karma, how would you explain that infants are born so differently? The fact that each one already has a calibrated level of consciousness at birth suggests that man’s inheritance is something other than just physical. Otherwise how would we be born so differently?

UH: And what about freedom and accountability in karma?

DH: Freedom and accountability are all within certain parameters. What you inherit are certain propensities, but you have likelihoods. It is really cascading levels of dominance in the field of consciousness. What you are inheriting is likelihoods. The energy field of likelihoods — and this is also verified scientifically by neurophysiology — that, depending on the level of cascading groups of neurons, you are more likely to make certain choices than other choices. Spiritual evolution, then, is setting up various paradigms of relative dominance and of relative power.

here are some people who under no circumstances would ever do certain acts, no matter what. There are other people who will do that very thing for the chances of slight gain.

UH: Say someone wakes up in the morning of a certain level of consciousness and makes a commitment to be loving to everyone he or she encounters and all of life that day …

DH: That’s going to have a dominant effect on your responses.

UH: And increase the likelihood that you’ll, most of the time, let’s say, choose to be kind …

DH: You’re talking about likelihoods. And the reason people get into arguments about it is they contextualize it in the Newtonian paradigm of cause and effect. It doesn’t work like cause and effect. It works as levels of dominance, the likelihood of certain energy fields dominating. It’s not deterministic causality, because choice then gives you all the open options. The range of choices is determined karmically by your level of consciousness; to give up your life for your country is an option for certain people at a certain level. It would never be a consideration for another person at a different level. That person would never give up his or her life for the good of mankind or for his or her country, etc.

UH: That reminds me of a story about a Medal of Honor recipient from Iraq, Michael Monsoor, who instead of jumping to safety dove on a grenade to save his …

DH: Yes, he saved the whole platoon.

UH: I recently read a story on him, and the love and courage in that was indescribable.

DH: That’s the kind of love that people in the service understand. The re-enlistment rate is extremely high if the time for re-enlistment comes up for a whole battalion at once; it is much lower if it only comes up individual by individual. There was a TV series based on that phenomenon of bonding that goes on between fellow warriors. It’s a very strong love, you know, a very strong love.

UH: In the context of consciousness, when one gives up one’s life for something greater than one’s personal self, whether for a friend or nation … it really raises one’s level of consciousness.

DH: Yes, indeed. The willingness to give all the way to the level of even life itself out of compassion and concern and love for your fellow man is a very high gift, and it raises one’s level of consciousness rapidly and enormously.

UH: As you know, most of our readers are clinicians of various backgrounds. Would you comment on how they might contextualize their healing work?

DH: There is the difference between treating and healing. Treating is linear, scientific, logical. It follows the Newtonian paradigm. Healing is far more inclusive. It includes all modalities; it is nonlinear, such as intention. You know, I had the largest practice as a psychiatrist in the United States for 25 years or something. And we used every possible modality that might benefit a patient. You never know which one of them is going to suddenly have an effect. Many of those things don’t cost anything, and they’re ultra simple.

Functional hypoglycemia is probably the most common misdiagnosis in the medical field, certainly in the psychiatric field. When a patient used to call and make an appointment, I told them, “Stop all sugar and sweets until I see ya!” Twenty-five percent of the time, by the time I saw the patient, they were asymptomatic. It helped the patients with anxiety, depression, rage attacks, whatever it might be. Twenty-five percent were asymptomatic by the time I saw them! Anxiety attacks stopped, etc. Functional hypoglycemia is probably the most underdiagnosed phenomenon that goes across all branches of medicine.

Of course, first of all, practically speaking, you just do it as a therapeutic modality. But if you want, you can get a six-hour glucose tolerance test to prove it. I would tell the more scientifically minded person to suggest to the patient to cut out all sugar and sweets; switch from glucose to fructose because it is in a lot of sweets. The health food store makes all kinds of candy bars and stuff out of fructose. Fructose does not create a hyper insulin response, so you can have a candy bar made out of fructose and you won’t get a drop in your blood sugar later. But the average candy bar will first raise your blood sugar really high; then drop it down rapidly. Then you feel like you want more sweets or starch or something.

I tell people to cut out sugar and sweets and switch to the fructose only. And you know, many diseases cure themselves by just doing that. So you know, the clinicians who liked to pooh-pooh functional hypoglycemia — they didn’t know what they were talking about. You know we saw patients go psychotic and become combative and bizarre and assaultive and everything at the effect of functional hypoglycemia.

Even more holistic is the whole concept of food allergy, which is foreign to medicine. Food allergy is another thing we tested for in the clinic. We put a very dilute solution of, you know, potato, or whatever it was, under the patient’s tongue; then we took the person’s blood pressure and pulse. The minute you put certain dilute substances under the tongue, some people would show an instant rise in blood pressure and pulse. We’ve had patients go psychotic right on the spot, even dangerously so.

You can use rotation diets; eliminate all beef for one week, or all potato, or whatever the food, some common thing. I remember a patient who had been chronically hospitalized for 25 years by a very wealthy family. We ran the test on him; when we put the potato underneath his tongue, he became assaultive, paranoid, and dangerous. So long as he stayed off potatoes, he was calm and quite manageable. It’s very gratifying if you are a treating doctor to try these things that are less known.

UH: They’re also really harmless to try.

DH: Yes, and they cost absolutely nothing. Don’t forget, very experienced clinicians have evolved these understandings and discoveries and shared them in a responsible way. It’s a waste of time to pooh-pooh it just because it’s outside your field of experience.

UH: Maybe we could close this interview by asking you to comment on prayer and healing, and what you mean by “living your life like a prayer”?

DH: Yes. Well, instead of just talking about a thing, you become it. You influence the world. Lots of people are very busy with various save-the-world schemes and realities, etc. Let’s save the world. And so you don’t save the world by what you say and pep rallies for peace. You influence the world by what you have become, what you are. What you are powerfully and constantly influences the collective level of consciousness of mankind. And words are cheap. And peace rallies are a dime a dozen. I don’t go to peace rallies because they are too violent. There are the police and dogs, people making a parade out of it, an exhibition out of it. It doesn’t bring any improvement in the world at all. The thing you can contribute most to the world is to be kind to all living things, under all conditions. You make your life a prayer, by adopting lovingness toward all that exists as your lifestyle. And then you influence all that you do, you know.

UH: Whether you’re a vet, a doctor, or a truck driver.

DH: That’s right. And, that same lovingness applies to the clinician. Clinicians who calibrate high have enormous practices, and their effect radiates out. Their effect radiates out. So, we try to influence the world by what we have become, not what we say, because talk is cheap. You can watch television news every day and hear all kinds of cheap talk, and that does nothing at all for the world, you know. It is what you have actually become. Because that influences what you do, and influences others indirectly.

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